Just three decades ago, Thurgood Marshall was only months away from appoint- ment to the Supreme Court when he suffered an indignity that today seems not just outrageous but almost incomprehensible. He and his wife had found theirdream house in a Virginia suburb of Washington, D.C., but could not lawfullylive together in that state: he was black and she was Asian. Fortunately forthe Marshalls, in January 1967 the Supreme Court struck down theanti-interracial-marriage laws in Virginia and 18 other states. And in 1967these laws were not mere leftover scraps from an extinct era. Two yearsbefore, at the crest of the civil-rights revolution, a Gallup poll foundthat 72 per cent of Southern whites and 42 per cent of Northern whites stillwanted to ban interracial marriage.Let's fast-forward to the present and another black-Asian couple: retiredGreen Beret Lieutenant Colonel Eldrick Woods Sr. and his Thai-born wife,Kultida. They are not hounded by the police -- just by journalists desperateto write more adulatory articles about how well they raised their son Tiger.The colossal popularity of young Tiger Woods and the homage paid his parentsare remarkable evidence of white Americans' change in attitude toward whatthey formerly denounced as "miscegenation." In fact, Tiger's famously mixedancestry (besides being black and Thai, he's also Chinese, white, andAmerican Indian) is not merely tolerated by golf fans. More than a few seemto envision Tiger as a shining symbol of what America could become in apost-racial age.Interracial marriage is growing steadily. From the 1960 to the 1990 Census,white-Asian married couples increased almost tenfold, while black-whitecouples quadrupled. The reasons are obvious: greater integration and thedecline of white racism. More subtly, interracial marriages are increasinglyrecognized as epitomizing what our society values most in a marriage: thetri- umph of true love over convenience and prudence.Nor is it surprising...
